Glossary Of Christianity
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Glossary Of Christianity
This is a glossary of terms used in Christianity. A *Advent – a season observed in many Western Christian churches, a time of expectant waiting and preparation for the celebration of the Nativity of Jesus at Christmas. *Almah – a young woman of childbearing age. *Amen – used in Jewish, Christian and Muslim worship as a concluding word or response to prayers. *Ancient of Days – name for God in the Book of Daniel: ''Atik Yomin''; in the Greek Septuagint: ''Palaios Hemeron''; and in the Vulgate: ''Antiquus Dierum''. *Anno Domini (AD) – Latin term for ''Year of the Lord'', the ''Lord'' in this case being Jesus, by Christian reckoning, the Messiah. Due to western dominance of the world, this has become the common world calendar system, though many cultures separately maintain their own calendars based on various events. Recently, the terms ''Common Era'' (''CE'') and ''Anno Mundi'' (''AM'') have come into use. *Anointing – ritual act of pouring aromatic oil over a person's ...
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Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global population. Its adherents, known as Christians, are estimated to make up a majority of the population in 157 countries and territories, and believe that Jesus is the Son of God, whose coming as the messiah was prophesied in the Hebrew Bible (called the Old Testament in Christianity) and chronicled in the New Testament. Christianity began as a Second Temple Judaic sect in the 1st century Hellenistic Judaism in the Roman province of Judea. Jesus' apostles and their followers spread around the Levant, Europe, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, the South Caucasus, Ancient Carthage, Egypt, and Ethiopia, despite significant initial persecution. It soon attracted gentile God-fearers, which led to a departure from Jewish customs, and, a ...
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Religion
Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural, transcendental, and spiritual elements; however, there is no scholarly consensus over what precisely constitutes a religion. Different religions may or may not contain various elements ranging from the divine, sacred things, faith,Tillich, P. (1957) ''Dynamics of faith''. Harper Perennial; (p. 1). a supernatural being or supernatural beings or "some sort of ultimacy and transcendence that will provide norms and power for the rest of life". Religious practices may include rituals, sermons, commemoration or veneration (of deities or saints), sacrifices, festivals, feasts, trances, initiations, funerary services, matrimonial services, meditation, prayer, music, art, dance, public service, or other aspects of human cultur ...
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Ascension Of Jesus
The Ascension of Jesus (anglicized from the Vulgate la, ascensio Iesu, lit=ascent of Jesus) is the Christian teaching that Christ physically departed from Earth by rising to Heaven, in the presence of eleven of his apostles. According to the New Testament narrative, the Ascension occurred on the fortieth day counting from the resurrection. In the Christian tradition, reflected in the major Christian creeds and confessional statements, God exalted Jesus after his death, raising him from the dead and taking him to Heaven, where Jesus took his seat at the right hand of God. In Christian art, the ascending Jesus is often shown blessing an earthly group below him, signifying the entire Church. The Feast of the Ascension is celebrated on the 40th day of Easter, always a Thursday; some Orthodox traditions have a different calendar up to a month later than in the Western tradition, and while the Anglican Communion continues to observe the feast, many Protestant churches have abandone ...
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Aramaic Of Jesus
There exists a consensus among scholars that the language of Jesus and his disciples was Aramaic. This is generally agreed upon by historians. Aramaic was the common language of Judea in the first century AD. The villages of Nazareth and Capernaum in Galilee, where Jesus spent most of his time, were Aramaic-speaking communities. Jesus likely spoke a Galilean variant of the language, distinguishable from that of Jerusalem. It is also likely that Jesus knew enough Koine Greek to converse with those not native to Judea, and it is reasonable to assume that Jesus was well versed in Hebrew for religious purposes. Cultural and linguistic background Aramaic was the common language of the Eastern Mediterranean during and after the Neo-Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian, and Achaemenid empires (722–330 BC) and remained a common language of the region in the first century AD. In spite of the increasing importance of Greek, the use of Aramaic was also expanding, and it would eventually be domina ...
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Council Of Jerusalem
The Council of Jerusalem or Apostolic Council was held in Jerusalem around AD 50. It is unique among the ancient pre-ecumenical councils in that it is considered by Catholics and Eastern Orthodox to be a prototype and forerunner of the later ecumenical councils and a key part of Christian ethics. The council decided that Gentile converts to Christianity were not obligated to keep most of the fasts, and other specific rituals, including the rules concerning circumcision of males. The Council did, however, retain the prohibitions on eating blood, meat containing blood, and meat of animals that were strangled, and on fornication and idolatry, sometimes referred to as the Apostolic Decree or Jerusalem Quadrilateral. The purpose and origin of these four prohibitions is debated. Accounts of the council are found in Acts of the Apostles chapter 15 (in two different forms, the Alexandrian and Western versions) and also possibly in Paul's letter to the Galatians (chapter 2). Some s ...
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Apostolic Decree
The Council of Jerusalem or Apostolic Council was held in Jerusalem around AD 50. It is unique among the ancient pre-ecumenical councils in that it is considered by Catholics and Eastern Orthodox to be a prototype and forerunner of the later ecumenical councils and a key part of Christian ethics. The council decided that Gentile converts to Christianity were not obligated to keep most of the fasts, and other specific rituals, including the rules concerning circumcision of males. The Council did, however, retain the prohibitions on eating blood, meat containing blood, and meat of animals that were strangled, and on fornication and idolatry, sometimes referred to as the Apostolic Decree or Jerusalem Quadrilateral. The purpose and origin of these four prohibitions is debated. Accounts of the council are found in Acts of the Apostles chapter 15 (in two different forms, the Alexandrian and Western versions) and also possibly in Paul's letter to the Galatians (chapter 2). Some ...
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Apostolic Age
Christianity in the 1st century covers the formative history of Christianity from the start of the ministry of Jesus (–29 AD) to the death of the last of the Twelve Apostles () and is thus also known as the Apostolic Age. Early Christianity developed out of the eschatological ministry of Jesus. Subsequent to Jesus' death, his earliest followers formed an apocalyptic messianic Jewish sect during the late Second Temple period of the 1st century. Initially believing that Jesus' resurrection was the start of the end time, their beliefs soon changed in the expected Second Coming of Jesus and the start of God's Kingdom at a later point in time. Paul the Apostle, a Pharisee Jew who had persecuted the early Jewish Christians, converted –36 and started to proselytize among the Gentiles. According to Paul, Gentile converts could be allowed exemption from Jewish commandments, arguing that all are justified by their faith in Jesus. This was part of a gradual split of early C ...
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Apostle (word)
An apostle (), in its literal sense, is an emissary, from Ancient Greek ἀπόστολος (''apóstolos''), literally "one who is sent off", from the verb ἀποστέλλειν (''apostéllein''), "to send off". The purpose of such sending off is usually to convey a message, and thus "messenger" is a common alternative translation; other common translations include "ambassador" and " envoy". The term in Ancient Greek also has other related meanings. The term derives from the Ancient Greek. In Christianity, the term was used in the New Testament for Jesus' Twelve Apostles (including Peter, James, and John), as well as a wider group of early Christian figures, including Paul, Barnabas, and Junia. The term is also used to designate an important missionary of Christianity to a region, e.g. the "apostle of Germany". Some other religions use the term for comparable figures in their history. The word in this sense may be used metaphorically in various contexts, but is m ...
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Nazareth
Nazareth ( ; ar, النَّاصِرَة, ''an-Nāṣira''; he, נָצְרַת, ''Nāṣəraṯ''; arc, ܢܨܪܬ, ''Naṣrath'') is the largest city in the Northern District of Israel. Nazareth is known as "the Arab capital of Israel". In its population was . The inhabitants are predominantly Arab citizens of Israel, of whom 69% are Muslim and 30.9% Christian. Findings unearthed in the neighboring Qafzeh Cave show that the area around Nazareth was populated in the prehistoric period. Nazareth was a Jewish village during the Roman and Byzantine periods, and is described in the New Testament as the childhood home of Jesus. It became an important city during the Crusades after Tancred established it as the capital of the Principality of Galilee. The city declined under Mamluk rule, and following the Ottoman conquest, the city's Christian residents were expelled, only to return once Fakhr ad-Dīn II granted them permission to do so. In the 18th century, Zahir al-Umar transfo ...
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Jesus
Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious leader; he is the central figure of Christianity, the world's largest religion. Most Christians believe he is the incarnation of God the Son and the awaited Messiah (the Christ) prophesied in the Hebrew Bible. Virtually all modern scholars of antiquity agree that Jesus existed historically. Research into the historical Jesus has yielded some uncertainty on the historical reliability of the Gospels and on how closely the Jesus portrayed in the New Testament reflects the historical Jesus, as the only detailed records of Jesus' life are contained in the Gospels. Jesus was a Galilean Jew who was circumcised, was baptized by John the Baptist, began his own ministry and was often referred to as "rabbi". Jesus debated with fellow Jews on ho ...
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Disciple (Christianity)
In Christianity, disciple primarily refers to a dedicated follower of Jesus. This term is found in the New Testament only in the Gospels and Acts. In the ancient world, a disciple is a follower or adherent of a teacher. Discipleship is not the same as being a student in the modern sense. A disciple in the ancient biblical world actively imitated both the life and teaching of the master. It was a deliberate apprenticeship which made the fully formed disciple a living copy of the master. The New Testament records many followers of Jesus during his ministry. Some disciples were given a mission, such as the Little Commission, the commission of the seventy in Luke's Gospel, the Great Commission after the resurrection of Jesus, or the conversion of Paul, making them '' apostles'', charged with proclaiming the gospel (the Good News) to the world. Jesus emphasised that being his disciples would be costly. Background of the term The term "disciple" represents the Koine Greek word ( ...
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Synoptic Gospels
The gospels of Gospel of Matthew, Matthew, Gospel of Mark, Mark, and Gospel of Luke, Luke are referred to as the synoptic Gospels because they include many of the same stories, often in a similar sequence and in similar or sometimes identical wording. They stand in contrast to Gospel of John, John, whose content is largely distinct. The term ''synoptic'' ( la, synopticus; ) comes via Latin from the Greek , ''synopsis'', i.e. "(a) seeing all together, synopsis"; the sense of the word in English, the one specifically applied to these three gospels, of "giving an account of the events from the same point of view or under the same general aspect" is a modern one. , , , , , . This strong Parallel passage, parallelism among the three gospels in content, arrangement, and specific language is widely attributed to literary interdependence. The question of the precise nature of their literary relationship—the #The synoptic problem, synoptic problem—has been a topic of lively deba ...
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